[323] On the 7th of April "the Lord Bishop of Worcester" (appointed to Winchester upon the death of Duppa on March 26th) "offered to the consideration of this House an explanation in a paper, of the vote of this House on Saturday last, concerning the words in the Act of Uniformity which declared against the Solemn League and Covenant, which he first opened, and afterwards, by permission of the House read." The question was raised, Whether a debate on the paper was against the orders of the House? and resolved in the negative, whereupon it was ordered, that the paper should be taken into consideration the next morning. A memorandum is entered in connection with this minute, "That, before the putting of the aforesaid question, these Lords, whose names are subscribed, desired leave to enter their dissents if the question was carried in the negative." No names, however, are subscribed. The day following, the House examined the paper which had been brought in for an explanation of the clause in the Act of Uniformity concerning the Covenant; and, after a long debate, the paper was laid aside.—Journals.
[324] The Lords appointed were the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Bristol, the Earl of Anglesey, the Bishop of Worcester, the Bishop of Exeter, the Bishop of Hereford, and the Lords Wharton, Mohun, Lucas, and Holles. The Earl of Anglesey reported the next day, "that the Committee have considered of a proviso, that such persons as are put out of their livings by virtue of the Act of Uniformity, may have such allowances out of their livings for their subsistence as His Majesty shall think fit." After some debate a few alterations were made, and it was resolved that the "proviso, with the alterations, shall stand in the Bill." The Lords having read the Bill a third time, April 9, resolved "to send for a Conference with the House of Commons to-morrow morning, and communicate this Bill with the alterations and amendments to them." The next day they gave direction "to deliver the Book wherein the alterations are made, out of which the other Book was fairly written."
[325] Commons, April 10, 14, and 16.
[326] By 96 to 90.—Journals, April 16.
[327] Ibid.
[328] Dr. Southey in his History of the Church, ii. 467, observes, The ejected "were careful not to remember that the same day, and for the same reason (because the tithes were commonly due at Michaelmas), had been appointed for the former ejectment, when four times as many of the loyal clergy were deprived for fidelity to their sovereign." To say nothing of the latter part, a subject I have fully discussed in a former volume, I would notice Mr. Hallam's question—"Where has Dr. Southey found his precedent?" Not any one Parliamentary ordinance in Husband's collection mentions St. Bartholomew's Day. Dr. Southey has, no doubt, followed Walker in his Sufferings of the Clergy, who makes the statement without any authority. Yet see quotation from Farewell Sermons in this volume, p. 278.
[329] Noticed in conferences with the Lords, May 7.
[330] Commons' Journal, April 21.
[331] Ibid., April 22.
[332] Ibid., April 26. The numbers were 94 to 87. It is curious to notice Hallam's correction of Neal. Referring to the division on the 26th of April, he says, "This may perhaps have given rise to a mistake we find in Neal, that the Act of Uniformity only passed by 186 to 180. There was no division at all upon the Bill, except that I have mentioned."—Constitutional History, ii. 37. Neal is undoubtedly incorrect, for there was no division on the Bill as a whole; but, Mr. Hallam is also mistaken, for as to parts of the Bill there were at least four divisions, according to the Journals. The neglect of the Journals, more or less, by all historians, has been one main cause of the inaccurate and confused accounts found in the best of them.